There is no method by which men can be both free and equal.

To be turned from one’s course by men’s opinions, by blame, and by misrepresentation shows a man unfit to hold office.

O citizens, first acquire wealth; you can practice virtue afterward.

You campaign in poetry. You govern in prose.

There is nothing more tyrannical than a strong popular feeling among a democratic people.

Envy is the basis of democracy.

An appeal to the reason of the people has never been known to fail in the long run.

People revere the Constitution yet know so little about it—and that goes for some of my fellow senators.

Let him who desires peace prepare for war.

Written laws are like spiderwebs: they will catch, it is true, the weak and poor but would be torn in pieces by the rich and powerful.

It is impossible to tell which of the two dispositions we find in men is more harmful in a republic, that which seeks to maintain an established position or that which has none but seeks to acquire it.

My people and I have come to an agreement that satisfies us both. They are to say what they please, and I am to do what I please.

Whether for good or evil, it is sadly inevitable that all political leadership requires the artifices of theatrical illusion. In the politics of a democracy, the shortest distance between two points is often a crooked line.